A concerned Morley elder (who has requested to remain anonymous for the safety of her family) approached the Cochrane Eagle of the Greatwest Newspapers chain the Outlook belongs to, and asked for assistance in getting her message out about what has been happening in her community.
The elder expressed her concerns over increasing gang violence that is apparently becoming widespread on the Nation.
She said she is hopeful that change is on the horizon for everyone living on the Nation – and that following recent untimely deaths in Morley (youth and adult suicides, overdoses, murder of a Morley woman in Calgary), that people will band together to create a better future for their children and be able to stop living in fear.
The Wesley First Nation Labour Day Classic Powwow 2014 took place Aug. 29-31 at the Chief Goodstoney Rodeo Centre, and the elder said she hoped Cochrane RCMP would have an increased presence, particularly during the evening, to prevent unnecessary violence from occurring.
In this letter, the Eagle and Outlook have honoured the elder’s request for anonymity and only made minor edits, as her first language is Stoney.
The elder is a lifelong member of the Stoney Nakoda First Nations community in Morley.
Aba wathtech…
‘I am one of the elders from Morley. As far as I can remember in the earlier days of my life, Morley was a quiet, peaceful reserve.
In the old days, parents and grandparents would tell their children, young people, not to fight or hurt anybody and to be polite and give respect to elders – to listen to their elders without talking back because elders have wisdom and live beyond their years and know what is right from wrong.
And elders would tell the young people of all the positive and negative things, show them to lead their lives down a positive path. It was a quiet time …
Nowadays, it’s really different. It looks like the reserve has been turned upside down and is now filled with hardships, with negativity and with violence.
Some of the young people turn to violence, to anger and to hatred. I wonder if they have parents or grandparents who could have encouraged good behaviour or could have been good role models to look up to?
Right now people who wear the colour blue have created a gang in Morley called the ‘Crips.’ Innocent people who wear red or black clothing get beat up. The gang members who wear blue go around spraying gang graffiti signs all over the reserve. They beat up anyone – young kids, even girls because they don’t care … they think it makes them look tough and strong and they want people to be scared of them.
It seems that the RCMP and our leaders (the chiefs) don’t really look into it. The youths on the reserve – alcohol and drugs have corrupted their minds. Maybe if one of the family members of one of our leaders was beat up then they would try and do something about it. Will it take killing someone and winding up in jail for these gang members to realize what they have done wrong?
I want somebody to do something about these problems because if nobody can do anything it will only get worse and more dangerous. It is especially dangerous for people who wear red or black. People from outside of Morley – if you come to visit or sightsee, watch yourselves if you wear red or black clothing because those (gang members) who wear blue are going to beat you for no other reason than you wore the ‘wrong’ colour.’
-Anonymous concerned elder from Stoney Nakoda Nation
